6 comments:

Beautiful! I am so honored to know families who have layed the foundations for these amazing biblical relationships. I wish we could have been there. But I will enjoy sharing the photos with our family until we meet one day!!

Deborah looked lovely. Looks like you were all having a fantastic time - congratulations!

As an aside, I noticed all the males in your family are growing out their hair. I presume this is less of a new family fashion trend and more a decision with either a theological or historical purpose behind it. Do you mind if I ask what it is?

Stacy,You are right on both counts. The long hair is for historical but mostly theological reasons. We believe that the whole Bible is relevant for us today and that Yahwh's instructions (Torah) haven't changed. However, we have come so far away from His instructions in our dispersion that none of us have much of a clue how to follow them any more. As we search out scripture, we try to figure things out the best we can. In Leviticus 19:27 it says not to round the corners of your head, nor mar the corners of your beard. We have been trying to figure out what that means. In our research we found that the Israelites appear to have had longer hair in the past than we do now. As they became Hellenized (changing to the western culture) their hair got shorter. As the back got shorter and shorter to conform to the culture around them, many of them would leave the front long and tuck it behind their ears so it wouldn't be so noticeable. Today some orthodox Jews still do this and it is called a pe'ot. The puritans were called "round heads" because they cut their hair short around their heads. This was considered rebellious in their culture as longer hair was the norm. Throughout history longer hair has been considered both rebellious and normal. So, we are left with what does the Bible have to say. We believe that we shouldn't round the corners of our head and right now we are thinking that means we shouldn't cut our hair short or taper it much. It is hard to get used to because it has rebellious connotations in our culture and it's not as easy to manage. But for now this is where we are at :)